1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a cooking apparatus, and more particularly to a cooking apparatus to effectively transfer heat to food to be cooked, thereby improving an energy efficiency of the cooking apparatus and reducing a cooking time of the cooking apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, meat, such as beef and pork, and processed meat, such as sausage and ham, are most delicious when cooked in a grilling manner in which food is cooked by directly applying heat to the food while putting the food on a grill. Accordingly, people are fond of having meat and processed meat cooked in the grilling manner.
In general, a cooking apparatus that grills food includes a heating unit that applies heat to the food, and a grill unit on which the food is placed to be partially exposed to the heating unit. The cooking apparatus functions to cook the food by directly transferring the heat generated by the heating unit to the food placed on the grill unit.
When grilling meat such as beef, pork, or mutton, the meat cut into slices may be put on the grill unit with sauce formed of various condiments applied thereto. In this case, when the slices of meat mixed with the sauce are heated by heat transferred from the heating unit, oil contained in the slices of meat and the sauce applied to the meat may drop downward.
Consequently, an oil collecting unit is provided in a body of the cooking apparatus to collect heated oil and the sauce that drops downward from the slices of meat. The oil collecting unit is disposed under the grill unit to collect the oil and the sauce, and the heating unit is disposed between the grill unit and the oil collecting unit to cook the food by applying heat to the food.
However, the conventional cooking apparatus constructed as described above cooks food through the use of only heat transferred upward from the heating unit because the heating unit is disposed under the grill unit. Accordingly, the conventional cooking apparatus cannot effectively transfer heat to the food, so the conventional cooking apparatus has low energy efficiency and requires a lengthy cooking time.
Additionally, the conventional cooking apparatus is disadvantageous in that the grill unit is maintained at a high temperature by the heat received from the heating unit, so portions of food in contact with the heated grill unit may burn, thus deteriorating taste of the food and creating harm to the users' health.